2005-2006

Margaret Gray examines the means by which non-citizen, low-wage workers seek representation for the furthering of their rights. Her research project draws on fieldwork among farmworkers and farmworker advocates in New York. The latter are indispensable to workers’ cause, yet her research shows they can only achieve limited success, primarily due to a deficit of participation on the part of the workers themselves. Gray’s case study also shows that workers’ own collective action is inhibited by a tight network of agricultural elites, closely allied with state actors, which controls their working lives and political imagination.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the U.S., who are mostly Latinos, are not only one of the subpopulations least visible to the mainstream eye, they are also one of the most difficult labor forces to organize. They are non-industrial—excluded from the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act—unskilled, seasonal, lacking permanency within their ranks, hidden even from local communities, and racially segregated within labor camps. Moreover, the majority are undocumented and lack English language skills; they may also be in the U.S. on agricultural (guestworker) visas. Despite these near insurmountable obstacles, farmworkers in New York have managed to advance their interests in recent years through legislation, legal redress, and negotiations with growers.

In analyzing the current state of low-wage workers in the U.S. and the limitations on their advocacy, this project presents updated information about immigrant incorporation while adding a new chapter to the study of U.S. labor movements; this is particularly timely in the context of the U.S. government’s increased scrutiny of immigrants since 9/11 and citizens’ growing anti-immigrant sentiment. Moreover, the study offers new demographic information on farmworkers in New York State.

This case study draws on several research sources: extensive ethnographic survey of Hudson Valley and Long Island agricultural workers; interviews with numerous advocates, service providers, legislators, Department of Labor representatives, and employers; and participant observation at marches, protests, and advocacy meetings. Gray also includes a comparative study of similar advocacy efforts for low-wage, immigrant workers in the U.S. and relies on existing surveys of advocacy. There is a strong urban bias in the existing literature on advocacy, and this rural case study offers an instructive alternative.

This research contributes to three major debates in the academic literature of political science, sociology, and social work, as well as a growing interdisciplinary body of work on nonprofits and philanthropy by scholars, lawyers, and practitioners. The first debate is quite local. It revolves around the exact nature of the gains made by U.S. farmworkers and how underrepresented groups can overcome structural constraints to create social and economic change through different strategies and approaches. In the second, scholars confront whether organizations and professional advocates ultimately hamper or assist struggles for social and economic change. The final debate revolves around the most apposite and effective role of advocacy efforts for the underrepresented.

In contrast to workers leveraging their economic power—perhaps a more viable alternative for immigrant workers of yesteryear—farmworkers and their advocates are devising creative strategies that often rely on nontraditional approaches to traditional politics. This is a trend seen across the country. In New York, for example, advocates facilitate meetings between state legislators and undocumented workers so that policy-makers are confronted with their plight. Furthermore, such strategies are aimed at provoking decision-makers to consider the political and economic rights that a democracy should offer to those who are vital to the economic health of the U.S.

Undocumented and transnational workers are increasingly common in other industries including garment manufacturing, meatpacking, construction, landscaping, restaurants, and domestic work. This project draws from, and complements, studies of these workers. Because of their rural isolation, migrant farmworkers are, arguably, the most dispossessed of all, and so their plight and efforts to remedy it are a potential bellwether for these other immigrant populations. Most recently, the events of 9/11 have transformed the political climate for immigrants in the U.S. Transnational workers who still identify Latin America as home are finding themselves staying in the U.S. for years at a time instead of returning annually. At the same time, many are no more incorporated into the U.S. than if they did return home annually. This case study offers a comprehensive and empirical analysis of the changing demographic of such workers, while offering a profile of their attitudes, aspirations, and the contradictions by which they live from day to day.

The methodological approach proposed to study the cumulative nature of inequality borrows from Tilly’s relational model, but does not discard methodological individualism. The relational model focuses on the interaction between citizens; on how bonds linking citizens provide the bases for durable inequalities (Tilly 1998, 236). For Tilly, it is not the variation in individual attributes that leads to differential rewards. Individual attributes explain variation in rewards inside distinct social groups. But variation in rewards that is systematic between social groups is due to patterns of interaction that generate biases in the allocation of resources. These are only possible as a consequence of overarching distortions in the distribution of opportunities and rewards.

Nonetheless, when it comes to the possession of specific political resources, Sen has argued that a component of inequality is also attributable to individual predispositions (1992). Certain individuals are bound to be better informed about politics for idiosyncratic reasons, such as interest in politics. Therefore, individual predispositions cannot be completely ignored in explaining variation in resources such as political information. However, Sen also agrees that if individual level variation has systematic biases based on gender, race and class, this is evidence that durable forms of inequality have been reproduced in the political domain. Therefore, the impact of relational biases can be measured at the individual level.

In my view, an approach that combines distinct levels of analysis provides more leverage to better understand biases in the distribution of political information. During the 2002 General Elections in Brazil, I spent 10 months collecting data of distinct types, using variegated research strategies, in two Brazilian mid-size cities in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul. The goal was to engage in subnational comparisons to tackle the problem of inequality in the distribution of political information at the local level. The project involved interviewing the same sample of respondents in each city in three distinct moments in time during the electoral campaign. The first interviews occurred in March, the second wave of interviews in September, a month before the elections, and the final wave in October, in-between the first and second round of the elections. The design also involved interviewing a sample of “political discussants” in November, which are people the original panel respondents discuss politics with.

The design focused on two cities that have adopted the Participatory Budget, albeit implementing it in different ways and with distinct results. This allowed for sufficient variation in structural and institutional environments to test hypotheses about how voters’ learn about politics under different conditions.

One of the cities, Caxias do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul, has a tradition of strong political parties and neighborhood associations. Caxias do Sul has been governed by the Worker’s Party for two consecutive terms and has very successfully implemented the Participatory Budget. In the past 8 years, the OP has consistently allocated the entire investment budget of the municipality in infra-structure improvements. The participation of the population is astonishingly high. Caxias do Sul provides an environment were biases in information between social and economic groups should be low.

On the other hand, the political system in Juiz de Fora, the second city studied, is organized around personalistic leaders. The current mayor is also in his second term, but engages more clearly in wheeling and dealing with organized groups. The OP has also been implemented, but it is much less successful than in Caxias. Only very limited amounts of the municipal budget have been allocated through the OP and popular participation has constantly faded. In sum, politics in Juiz de Fora resembles the more traditional type of policy-making associated with political underdevelopment and clientelistism. Biases in information diffusion should be more acute in Juiz de Fora.

In each city respondents were selected in neighborhoods with distinct demographic and economic characteristics. This assures that individuals with distinct social and economic backgrounds and that live in different areas of the cities were interviewed.

Finally, my colleagues and I (the data collection project also involved Barry Ames and Andrew Baker) content analyzed local and national newspapers and television news broadcasts and conducted in-depth interviews with neighborhood activists. In this way, we also have information about the content of the messages voters were exposed to.

Hence, the design allows for measures of individual, relational and environmental level factors and the incorporation of all these levels in an encompassing analysis of the cumulative nature of inequality. Informational asymmetries between citizens are measured at the individual level, based on voters’ knowledge about candidates, parties and issues in the 2002 elections. But, the factors that influence the amount of information voters have are not only related to idiosyncratic differences, such as interest in politics, but are also related to environmental and relational factors.

Lucio can be reached by e-mail at lucio_renno@yahoo.com

Un análisis ontólogico de su pervivencia en la sociedad cubana actual

Por Odette Casamayor Cisneros

¿Por qué, a pesar de las transformaciones sociales acaecidas desde el triunfo de la revolución en 1959, las desigualdades raciales persisten en Cuba?

Si las circunstancias históricas, políticas e ideológicas (la revolución marxista-leninista, la caída del campo socialista), si la situación económica (mejoramiento durante épocas, empeoramiento en otras), o el nivel de instrucción (que se mantiene elevado desde 1959) no consiguen justificar completamente la persistencia de desigualdades raciales en Cuba, ¿dónde hallar explicaciones a este fenómeno?

Algo, no obstante, permanece invariable desde los tiempos de la época colonial y esclavista hasta la actualidad, pasando por la primera república y por la revolución socialista: el negro en Cuba ha sido siempre considerado como un “otro”. Así, en las más relevantes teorías sobre la cuestión racial se trata siempre de “comprender” al negro. Es decir, que éste es considerado como un elemento externo, un individuo diferente que necesita ser comprendido para poder integrarlo dentro de la comunidad. Precisamente en esta situación radica, en mi opinión, aquello que hace posible la pervivencia de la desigualdad racial en Cuba: en el hecho de que el negro cubano es un otro que no es realmente otro. Es, para el imaginario social, alguien a quien se le mira generalmente como al otro que hay que explicar y comprender para llegar a aceptarlo como conciudadano, un miembro más de la sociedad y de la nación. Se trata entonces de alguien que ha de meritar su presencia en la comunidad, o a quien hay que ayudarle a conquistarla, a quien se le niega, a quien se le posibilita el acceso, una persona cuya existencia dentro del “cosmos” cubano ha de ser justificada.

Estos mecanismos habrían podido resultar infalibles si el negro no fuese un sujeto más de la realidad cubana. Si fuera en efecto un extraño, un verdadero otro, perfectamente excluido, sólo un personaje de ficción y no un ser real a quien le resulta imposible “compartir su propia existencia”; entonces habría podido colocársele sin reservas los estereotipos, que no caerían porque el negro no tendría por qué “aparecer” –en la manera en que el filósofo Emmanuel Lévinas describe “l’apparition d’autrui” en su crítica a la ontología occidental- en la vida de los otros cubanos, en ese supuesto cosmos nacional. Su rostro no visitaría al resto de la comunidad, no “hablaría”, no perturbaría ni desmentiría la imagen que de él conciben los otros. No saldría jamás de la ficción que se inventan los cubanos para aprehender lo nacional. Situación ésta posible en estados de segregacionismo: sean la esclavitud o sus supervivencias más contemporáneas. Pero cuando la presencia del negro en lo cotidiano se torna insoslayable, el estereotipo es difícilmente sostenible y se vuelve evidente la desigualdad tal cual, el racismo (sean la discriminación o el prejuicio raciales), solamente explicable por el hecho de que, para el imaginario social, entre los unos y los otros existen diferencias determinadas por la condición racial, evaluadas positiva o negativamente a partir del modelo del yo nacional. Mientras no se reconozca esta premisa existencial la cuestión racial permanecerá explorada sólo en su mitad.

Por otra parte, si el negro es considerado como un otro en Cuba, es porque prevalece la visión eurocentrista en el imaginario social. El problema es que dicha visión es característica de la civilización occidental, de la cual la nación cubana forma parte, aun desde sus márgenes. El mismo negro cubano –en las márgenes de las márgenes- integra esta civilización. Aflora entonces una gran paradoja: en una sociedad donde el negro no es realmente otro, este es siempre considerado bajo el prisma de la otredad, como corresponde a la civilización a la cual pertenece. Muy excepcionalmente, el negro cubano consigue verse a sí mismo de una manera diferente a la que hasta ahora le ha prestado su formación dentro de la civilización judeocristiana. En esencia, está condenado a aceptar sus modelos o los acepta voluntaria o involuntariamente, salvo si opone una radical mirada crítica a la ontología occidental. Esta aporética situación es propia también de otros negros del continente. En tal sentido, ha de reconocerse que algunos intentos por liberarse de las condicionantes culturales occidentales han sido llevados a cabo. Puede pensarse, por ejemplo, en diversas “negritudes”, como la animada por Aimé Césaire con el respaldo del movimiento surrealista, en el garveyismo, y tal vez, más recientemente, en ciertas tendencias de la “creolidad” por la que militan fervorosamente algunos intelectuales del Caribe francófono. Pero, en general, estas tentativas sólo han conducido a nuevos “extravíos” del negro, quien tampoco al buscar ideas diferentes que le expliquen su existencia –presuntamente ajenas al pensamiento occidental- logra entenderse a sí mismo. Y es que por estos derroteros el negro sigue explorando su propia explicación, que hasta él mismo parece necesitar para comprender su presencia en la sociedad occidental.

En fin, que las paradojas se suman, se acumulan, en esta cuestión de la desigualdad racial en Cuba, llegando seguramente a hacernos creer que se trata de una fatalidad contra la cual es imposible rebelarse y frente a la que carecemos de medios para estudiarla. En efecto, el presente estudio no persigue aportar soluciones inmediatas a tal problemática. Sólo busca una perspectiva diferente de análisis que pretende socavar el fundamento mismo de los estudios sobre el negro en Cuba. La cuestión principal, aquí, es demostrar que el racismo persiste en la isla porque, más que un problema social, es un problema ontológico, que sólo tal vez hallaría solución si algún día el negro dejase de ser considerado como otro, diferente al yo nacional, dentro del imaginario cubano. En este sentido, tal vez el esfuerzo de Lévinas por romper o proponer un acercamiento al ser que vaya más allá de la pura afirmación de sí mismo, para considerar la capacidad de ser en el otro; es decir, sus “atentados” contra la ontología “egológica” pueden ofrecer senderos esperanzadores. Entre tanto, nos contentamos con exponer la pertinencia de esta hipótesis en la que la otredad ficticia del negro es situada a la base de la pervivencia de la desigualdad racial, a través de la desconstrucción –precisamente ontológica- de las ideas que sobre el negro han sido desarrolladas en Cuba y de la imbricación que éstas guardan con otros discursos fundamentales, como la nación o la revolución.

1. The exploration of the new contours of Latin American inequality —such as the digital divide, dual labor markets, flexible work regimes, global (north-south) disparities, the decay of welfare services and emergent family labor strategies.
2. Moving beyond standard indicators of inequality (incomes, property, wealth, education levels, job and social benefits) to include new criteria as well, especially those sensitive to people’s actual social networks and cultural capital.
3. Highlighting symbolic and power dimensions in the construction of inequalities, such as boundary-marking, distinction and "contra-distinction," exclusionary processes, the ritual construction of difference and the like.
4. Analysis of non-conventional resource flows and human seldom included in inequality research, such as those derived from corruption, drug traffic, crime, daily forms of resistance, migration, and participation in social movements, NGOS and cultural industries.
5. Seeks actor's points of view and foregrounds agency, possibilities and the quotidian ways people cope and deal with inequality structures and relations.